In this issue: * AIDEED REELECTED CHAIRMAN OF SOMALI NATIONAL ALLIANCE * FIGHTING IN KISMAYO * UN CHIEF RECOMMENDS 15,000 TROOPS STAY IN SOMALIA * WFP FOOD AID TO CONTINUE * JUDGE INVESTIGATES UN DETENTION OF AIDEED AIDES * SOMALIA ON SHORT-WAVE ____________________________________________________________________ S O M A L I A N E W S U P D A T E ____________________________________________________________________ Vol 3, No 2 January 7, 1994. ISSN 1103-1999 ____________________________________________________________________ Somalia News Update is published irregularly via electronic mail and fax. Questions can be directed to Bernhard.Helander@antro.uu.se or to fax number +46-18-151160. All SNU marked material is free to quote as long as the source is clearly stated. ____________________________________________________________________ AIDEED REELECTED CHAIRMAN OF SOMALI NATIONAL ALLIANCE (SNU, Uppsala, January 7) - Reuters report that Aideed, who is currently in neighbouring Kenya, was given a fresh six-month mandate at a congress in Mogadishu on Tuesday attended by some 200 high- ranking SNA officials. The vote, described by Reuters as "a foregone conclusion" was said by Abdi Karim Ahmed, chairman of the congress, to be a show of support for the man who waged a four-month guerrilla war against UN forces in the broken Horn of Africa country. "We wanted to call a congress while he was out of the country as we felt it would be good to reelect him in his absence". Some observers are not so certain that reelection of Aideed was the original intention of the congress. Aideed who comes from the Jalaf lineage of the Sa'ad sub-section of the Habar Gedir clan, has long been facing mounting opposition from other sections of Habar Gedir, most notably the large Ayr section. However, even within the Sa'ad ranks, for example among the Hilowle who count members such as the famous lawyer Ali Baar and Osman "Ato", as well as the Nim'aale lineage of the important General Aar, criticism has been heard. Aideed's hesitance to travel to the Addis Ababa meeting last December is also said to have reflected the insecurity of his leadership. "The Americans gave Aideed a reputation he was nothing before the Americans got here", said Mohammed Sheikh, an elder of the Habar Gedir clan a few days ago. "When the Americans fought him, they made him a hero". The SNA congress also featured a persuasive video-show of the successful cleaning of 18 streets in Mogadishu carried out by the SNA since December 12. According to Abdullah Hassim Friribi, the SNA's secretary of propaganda, the aim of the campaign was to demonstrate to the Somali people that the SNA is prepared to work for them. Meanwhile it has been announced that President Mohammed Ibrahim Egal of the independent Somaliland republic in the north has held lengthy discussions with Aideed in Kenya. "The UN should not portray Aideed as a monster. The UN does not understand the complexity of the Somali problem", Egal told AFP afterwards. Egal went on to suggest that the future role of the UN in Somalia should be minimized and that the UN "should just work as a non-governmental organisation and leave the negotiations to the Somalis and the African leaders in the region". FIGHTING IN KISMAYO (SNU, Uppsala, January 7) - Major Tim MacDavitt, the military spokesman of the United Nations Operation in Somalia (UNOSOM), reported on Tuesday morning it was receiving reports of inter-clan violence in the Kismayo region. MacDavitt added that the reports suggested that the fighting was more than banditry, though so far it had been limited to small arms fire. Control of Kismayo has been disputed between Ahmed Omar Jess, one of Aideed's main allies who is supported by one of the Ogadeni clans in the area, and his arch-rival Mohammed Said Hersi, known as Morgan, the son-in-law of deposed dictator Mohamed Siad Barre. Morgan is the leader of a group of three Daarood clans collectively known as Harti. On the 23rd June 1993 UNOSOM managed to stage a fragile peace- accord between the main warring factions in the region. UN CHIEF RECOMMENDS 15,000 TROOPS STAY IN SOMALIA (Reuters, United Nations, January 6) - UN secretary-general Boutros Boutros-Ghali will recommend shortly that a reduced force of at least 15,000 troops stay in Somalia after the United States withdraws and that Mogadishu be bypassed as much as possible, a senior UN official said Thursday. But a report due to the Security Council within a week will make clear that offers of even 15,000 troops, mainly from African nations, are precarious because of lack of money to pay for them. Pakistan and India, part of the current 28,000-strong force, have promised to stay on while Zimbabwe, Uganda, Nigeria, Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt are waiting to see if funds are available to support them, the official said. Nevertheless, Boutros-Ghali was reported to be confident that he could secure the 15,000 troops, including some already in Somalia, by March 31 when the United States withdraws. Retired US Admiral Jonathan Howe, the special UN envoy in Somalia, has said he wanted the troops on the ground until 1995 in the hopes they could be slowly phased out before then. The new strategy, outlined by Howe last month and by UN officials close to Boutros-Ghali Thursday, is to decentralize supplies and troops by using in southern Mogadishu and a road circumventing the capital city from the port. Another possibility would be to remove the fortress-type UN headquarters from Mogadishu itself, the scene of concentrated banditry and warfare between supporters of General Farah Aideed and those of Ali Mahdi. Aideed, whose supporters were accused of killing 24 Pakistani peace keepers last June, was the target of a United States-led UN manhunt that resulted in the killing of 18 American soldiers in October. Subsequently Washington announced US troops would be withdrawn by March 31. European nations with troops in Somalia, who were able to finance their operations until the United Nations comes up with funds, have followed the American lead. The UN officials were fairly confident the conflict would be isolated in Mogadishu even though Aideed's Somalia National Alliance also controls areas elsewhere. "We have important local police, we have district councils, the beginning of machinery ... and perhaps a peace agreement", the senior UN official said. Aideed, he said, had little support throughout the country. But he admitted there would be no lasting peace in rebuilding Somalia unless there was an agreement that included Aideed. The mandate of the new contingents will remain under Chapter 7 of the United Nations Charter which allowed the use of force rather than Chapter 6 which authorises peace-keeping operations without force. The secretary-general is "against returning to Chapter 6", the official said. "The fact that you are using Chapter 7 does not mean that you must use force. Chapter 7 means that you are allowed to use force". Reports from Mogadishu indicate that looters are stockpiling goods before the US withdrawal and the general apprehensiveness by UN forces to stop them. The bandits are operating in the Baidoa district also and reporters of inter-clan violence are growing around Kismayo. WFP FOOD AID TO CONTINUE (SNU, Uppsala, January 7) - The World Food Programme (WFP) has announced that it will supply an additional 16,900 metric tons of emergency food to vulnerable people throughout Somalia as the first part of the 53,289 tonnes of high value commodities that will be needed this year. Of all WFP projects in Somalia, only 15 percent are now emergency related but, as WFP Executive Director Catherine Bertini pointed out, although significant progress had been made over the last year in alleviating hunger, Somalia was still recovering from the widespread famine. "The WFP's priority for 1994 is to initiate activities which strengthen food security, from the national level right down to households", she said according to a UN press- release. The WFP requires $50 million worth of various food commodities to carry out its 300 food programmes in Somalia in 1994. Improved security and increased agricultural input, combined with good rains, resulted in a 1993 crop season of "average" to "satisfactory" harvests. However, there are various pockets of continuing hunger in the countryside and in some urban areas. Village and family buffer stocks have not yet regained their pre-war levels, the WFP claims. Food aid to Somalia has come under much recent criticism for failing to create incentives to reconstruct the agricultural production. However, Ms. Bertini said, "The people of Somalia urgently need employment to get back on their feet. For this reason, 50 per cent of WFP's programmes in 1994 are food-for-work schemes which we expect will generate around 64,000 jobs, indirectly benefiting 320,000 people". JUDGE INVESTIGATES UN DETENTION OF AIDEED AIDES (Reuters, Mogadishu, January 5) - A former chief justice of Zimbabwe is investigating whether the UN should hold eight detained aides of Mogadishu warlord Mohamed Farah Aideed, who are suspected of being involved in attacks on peace keepers. Admiral Jonathan Howe, UN special envoy to Somalia, told reporters on Wednesday that the United Nations had asked Enoch Dumbutshena, a Zimbabwe lawyer, to carry out the investigation. "He has already started business, he will then make a recommendation to the secretary-general ...whether they should be retained or not", Howe said. Aideed and his gunmen were blamed for the June 5 killing of 24 Pakistani peace keepers, but the United Nations abandoned its attempt to bring him to trial after 18 US servicemen were killed and 74 wounded in a battle in central Mogadishu in early October. The UN has since come under pressure to release Aideed's men who were arrested last September. They include Osman "Ato", Aideed's chief financier and right-hand man. Some 70 other detainees, arrested when the hunt for Aideed was at its height, have already been freed but the UN has appeared reluctant to set release some of his top allies at a time when the city is reported to be SOMALIA ON SHORT-WAVE (SNU, Uppsala, January 7) - According to a list compiled by a Dutch radio amateur, Jan Nieuwenhuis, the following radio stations operate inside Somalia: RADIO HARGEISA, The voice of the Republic of Somaliland. Hargeisa; this station, which is believed to operate from a 1-kW mobile transmitter, is scheduled at 1000-1230 and 1500-1700 on 7120v kHz. RADIO MANTA, Mogadishu; this station, which was originally run by the US military under the name Radio Rajo (Radio Hope) - the voice of the Unified Task Force, is now called Radio Manta (Somali for Radio Today) with the handover of command from the US-led Operation Restore Hope to UNOSOM-2 (UN Operation in Somalia Phase 2) on 4th May 1993. The station is transmitting in Somali only and has two short- wave transmitters which operate in USB mode plus carrier with a power of 600 Watts. Their schedule is as follows: 0415-0500, 1000-1045, 1100-1145 and 1300-1345 on 9540 kHz, 1600-1645, 1700-1745 and 1900- 1945 on 6170 kHz. RADIO MOGADISHU, The voice of the Somali Republic. Mogadishu; this pro-Ali Mahdi Mohammed station is transmitting on a highly variable frequency somewhere between 6720-6890 kHz in upper sideband plus carrier mode at 0400- 0500, 0500-0600 (Fri), 1000-1130 and 1600- 1800. VOICE OF FREE SOMALIA [Somali: Idaacada Madaxa Banaan ee Soomaaliya], Gaalka'ayo; can be heard with transmissions in English at 0500-0515 on 7460 kHz and at 1800-1815 on 7499 kHz. The station began broadcasting on 18 August 1993 and appears to be controlled by the Somali Salvation Democratic Front (SSDF). It was set up with assistance from the Australian-based International Amateur Radio Network. SNU has been informed that the group of SDM (Somali Democratic Movement) that was formed during the Boonka-meeting in March last year, has recently set up their own radio which transmits daily broadcasts in the Af Maay dialect. SNU would like to call on its readers to supply further details of Somali short-wave transmissions. ___________________________________________________________________ SNU is an entirely independent newsletter devoted to critical analysis of the political and humanitarian developments in Somalia and Somaliland. SNU is edited and published by Dr. Bernhard Helander, Uppsala University, Sweden. SNU is produced with support from the Scandinavian Institute of African Studies, Uppsala, Sweden. ____________________________________________________________________